The best new movies on Netflix in February

The most influential movie of the past 30 years (have a look at Pulp Fiction and The Sopranos if you don't believe us), Martin Scorsese’s monumental rise-and- fall chronicle of mob informer Henry Hill is the last word on Mafia films and the myth of criminal chic. “Funny how? Funny like a clown? I amuse you?” You’ll be quoting all of it.

The mighty comeback of L.A. auteur Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break) is an Iraq movie done right: no politicizing; only stoic, Hawksian men of action holding up under pressure. Bigelow would go on to make confused modern warfare her pet subject, with movies like Zero Dark Thirty and Detroit. As of right now, she is the only woman to win the Oscar for Best Director.

Though released in two “volumes” (both are available on Netflix this month), Quentin Tarantino’s extraordinary martial-arts magnum opus is best viewed as one four-hour whole, detailing the roaring revenge of the Bride (Uma Thurman), a trained assassin out to slay the former associates who left her and her unborn child for dead. As always with Tarantino, the words provide the real action.

Stealthily, Lincoln doesn’t have a typical birth-to-death arc, and thank Abe for that. Instead, it’s mainly about the passage of the 13th Amendment (the one that abolished slavery), compressing all of its insights into a handful of contentious months in 1865. It’s a grand, verbose and heartbreaking film, essentially about the art of persuasion, even among enemies.

Dapper Danny Ocean (George Clooney) is a man of action. Less than 24 hours into his parole from a New Jersey penitentiary, the wry, charismatic thief is already rolling out his next plan. Following three rules: Don't hurt anybody, don't steal from anyone who doesn't deserve it, and play the game like you've got nothing to lose. Danny orchestrates the most sophisticated, elaborate casino heist in history.

And here’s everything coming in February, by date:

Available Feburary 1
Aeon Flux
American Pie
American Pie 2
American Pie Presents: Band Camp
American Pie Presents: The Book of Love
American Pie Presents: The Naked Mile
Ella Enchanted
Extract
42 Grams
GoodFellas
How the Beatles Changed the World
The Hurt Locker
John Mellencamp: Plain Spoken
Kill Bill: Vol. 1
Kill Bill: Vol. 2
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
Liberated: The New Sexual Revolution
Lovesick
Meet the Fockers